ECON IN JC

[meinteel]

Hey Cheese! Want to know the best way to improve your economics without having to spend lots of money on tuition?


Argue with your college tutor, classmates, and economics mates. Also discuss economic concepts in application to recent happens around the world and share pointview. This is what my college tutor told us. Not only is it interesting, it open up lots of different viewpoint and logical arugments that may be used in examinations.

Also, write and re-write your economics essay and get it edited by your friends and your college’s economics tutor. My lecturer use to tell us, "I can make you re-write your essay 10 times and it won’t be good enough." Write your essays every week and keep reading up, soon you will write like an economist.

You may want to try reading John Solman’s books. There are two version, both are very good but it is pretty dry and most students like myself won’t finish it.

[hometutors.018849sg]

If you are struggling, say spending one whole day on a question, most likely you need help.


Nowadays having B grades will not give you much chances into popular courses lke Law, business, accountancy …

And if one does not do well in his/her A level, he will need to spend more than $30-50k to study in private Uni.

Few months tuition fees really wont cost that much.

[cheese]

Thks!

meinteel:

Hey Cheese! Want to know the best way to improve your economics without having to spend lots of money on tuition?

Argue with your college tutor, classmates, and economics mates. Also discuss economic concepts in application to recent happens around the world and share pointview. This is what my college tutor told us. Not only is it interesting, it open up lots of different viewpoint and logical arugments that may be used in examinations.

Also, write and re-write your economics essay and get it edited by your friends and your college's economics tutor. My lecturer use to tell us, \"I can make you re-write your essay 10 times and it won't be good enough.\" Write your essays every week and keep reading up, soon you will write like an economist.

You may want to try reading John Solman's books. There are two version, both are very good but it is pretty dry and most students like myself won't finish it.

[andante]

hometutors.sg:

cheese:

ECON is a totally new subject to a JC student. Can anyone share how to do well in this subject? Does tuition help ?Any good recommendation of books or tuition centre?

Many students have problems with econs. However often they are unable to get individual help from the JC teacher as the Teacher is very busy.

Definitely worth investing in tuition if you are struggling badly.

Any recommendation ? My dd in jc 1 and got u grade for mid year exam, got panicked ? Any help? Any good econs tutor?

[cheese]

My ds in JC1 aso got u grade for mid-yr exam. His whole class failed. He said will ask his school teacher for help. Dont know whether it helps?

[linden2000]

Econs is actually an interesting and very relevant subject if the concepts learnt are applied on current affairs and everyday life. Think it's easier to study and do well if you appreciate its relevance and applications.


For instance, try reading the book \"The Undercover Economist\" by Tim Harford which introduces the basic ideas of mainly microeconomics (eg demand and supply, price elasticity, game theory,etc) through everyday real life examples. For macroeconomics, try to apply the concepts to current affairs that you can read about in the newspapers, eg GDP, business cycles, unemployment, inflation.

Hope the above helps.

[yongzhi93]

There're actually two parts to the syllabus, and I learnt from my tutor that they're rather different.


Microecons: requires logical thinking.
It is a \"dead\" subject where every basic question in the book has a model answer, so A-level tries to set trickier questions every year. IE, ideal for the math&science mugger types.

Macroecons: requires judgment.
It is actually constantly changing even though there is a fixed syllabus. Some general rules and graphs to remember, but the rest is application, analysis and evaluation.

As far as I know, students are advised to aim for Q3 (Market Failure), Q4 and Q5 in the A-level econs paper. In general Q1 (Supply & Demand) is quite tough without detailed knowledge; it is normally taught in passing as prerequisite to understanding the whole syllabus.

[kiasu_mum75]

for those who are keen , i think the straits times newspapers super tutor's name is anthony. can see his details on website http://www.economics.com.sg

[Young_parent]

Based on what i know, the economics concepts are not hard to grasp, but the main reason why students dun score is due to a lack of 'structure' in their answers. My younger brother,studying in SAJC didn't do well at first. After struggling for half a year, we engage a personal tutor for him and he really improved tremendously, scoring A and Bs consistently.

The tutor charges pretty reasonably too. you can contact him@ [email protected]. Dun expect instant miracles though.

[mensch]

Hi cheese (and all)


Think the comments on structure and practice are all really relevant.

Just want to add a couple more observations.

1) A level Econs (like many other subjects) has had a new syllabus since 2007. One of the biggest changes is that students now need to demonstrate that they can skilfully apply the theory to current affairs (or more accurately, events from 1 to 2 years leading up to the exam date).

So students need to actively think about how to link theories they have learned and memorised to real world examples in their responses, rather than just \"vomit\" out theory. This can be challenging because although most school notes are decent, it's not easy for teachers to write in all the possible links next to the theory bits.

2) There is a huge focus on how events affect Singapore and how Singapore has responded, in both Papers 1 and 2. Schools cover this in depth, and there are some decent publications in bookstores.

As a first step, reading up on economic events and policy decisions in Asia / Europe / US as covered by Straits Times, The Economist, BBC is pretty helpful.

3) There is a trend toward mixing chapters from both years of the syllabus in case and essay questions. So students need to be vigilant when taking exams and actively ask themselves \"which chapter(s) are they testing me on here?\"

Cheers!